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Rain’s A Drag, But Sunny Weather Coming This Weekend

CHICAGO (STMW) — The bitter rains that covered the Chicago area this week continued on Friday, canceling 500 flights at O’Hare Airport. But the area will finally see a break on a predicted sunny Saturday.

The city’s Aviation Department said some airlines at O’Hare were experiencing delays of 90 minutes for flights in and out of the airport as of 8:45 p.m. And 500 flights had been canceled for the day.

Those cancellations and delays were due to rain and low visibility in the Chicago area, as well as on the East Coast, the department said.

At Midway, there are a few delays of an average of 20 minutes, but no cancellations have been reported, the department said.

Friday night’s storms may produce hail up to one inch, damaging wind gusts in excess of 60 mph and cloud to ground lightning, the National Weather Service said. There is also a chance of isolated tornadoes and brief heavy downpours for north central Illinois, northeast Illinois and Northwest Indiana.

The most severe threat of possible damaging winds and isolated tornadoes will remain south of I-80, the weather service said.

On Saturday, the cold and rain will go away, at least for a bit. The high will reach 63 degrees and the day will be sunny, the weather service said. There’s just a 20 percent chance of showers on Saturday night.

And on Sunday, the cold and rain the Chicago area endured for most of the week will rear its evil head again with a 60 percent chance of showers Sunday night and a low of 45 degrees. Monday will also see an 80 percent chance of thunderstorms with a high of just 54 degrees.